


Chicken Soup for the Soul

by sarken



Category: Real News RPF
Genre: Chicken Soup, Gen, Rachel's Fear of Mermaids, Sickfic, TSP Comment Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-25
Updated: 2010-10-25
Packaged: 2017-10-14 16:04:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/151033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarken/pseuds/sarken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith doesn't quite dote on a sick Rachel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chicken Soup for the Soul

Rachel _wants_ to ask him if he has any idea what he is doing, but she only gets as far as the first word before her throat seizes up and sends her into another coughing fit. Her entire chest aches from coughing like this, and she crosses her arms against her stomach as she doubles over and tries to (or tries not to; she is no longer certain at this point) cough up a lung.

Her eyes are watering when the coughing fit recedes, and she can make out Keith's blurry form as he stands over her with a glass of water. She reaches for it, but he pulls it away.

" _Small_ sips," he reminds her.

She crooks her finger at him, wordlessly telling him to hand over the glass. She grabs for it when he gets closer, but he jerks it away again.

"I mean it, Rachel. Bird-like sips. We're not having a repeat of the cough drop incident."

Nearly choking to death on a cough drop due to an ill-timed coughing attack was not one of her finest moments. She nods, and Keith finally gives her the glass of room temperature water.

It tastes like the best scotch she's ever had, but it burns like the worst moonshine she can imagine. She shoves the glass back at Keith, glaring at it.

"Does this mean you don't want soup?"

Rachel refocuses her glare on him. "Starving," she croaks out.

Keith chuckles. "Now there's a radio voice if I ever heard one."

Luckily, she knows a way to say fuck you without disturbing her throat.

"All right, all right," he says, backing toward the kitchen. "Don't get between the sick television host and her soup. When did you say Susan was coming back?"

Rachel isn't sure if it's a rhetorical question or not, but she doesn't bother trying to answer, instead slumping in her seat and staring at the wall-mounted television. TV might be her weakness, but she wishes she had paid for at least sixty channels of Kryptonite instead of just a half dozen.

When she wakes up, there's a new infomercial on the screen, and the sound is turned off. Her glasses are no longer on her face, and she would sit up and look for them if she weren't afraid any motion whatsoever would send her into another coughing fit.

She does just fine holding still until Keith walks into the room, and she sees the infomercial isn't the only thing that changed while she was asleep.

Keith's jeans are missing, and he's walking around in black socks, Susan's apron, and his boxer shorts. At least, Rachel _hopes_ he's wearing his shorts under that apron -- she's not particularly eager for him to turn around so she can find out. Just past his hip, Rachel can see his damp, noodle-covered pants tossed over her kitchen chair.

Keith is the one who looks like Corporal Klinger, but he still manages to smirk. "I'd say, 'Not one word, Rachel,' but that's not really a concern today, is it, Ariel?"

The mermaid reference seals the deal: she can't speak now, but once her voice comes back, Keith will never live down his chicken soup incident.


End file.
